A medical student who has just completed a 4-week “family medicine rotation” with longtime Gilmer physician Dr. Lewis King said she learned some things from working with him.

Rachel McCreary, a third-year medical student at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, said she discovered “how important it is to really communicate with your patients and understand everything going on in their life,” thus taking a “holistic approach.”

Her work here—one of several types of rotations for third and fourth-year medical students—involved screening patients for Dr. King and observing him examine them. From here, she was scheduled to go on to rotations in legislation and pediatrics.

Miss McCreary, who grew up in Kilgore, plans to enter family practice herself in East Texas. She is a 2006 graduate of Trinity School of Texas in Longview, where her mother, Mellissa McCreary, teaches with Dr. King’s wife, Karen King. That led to the medical student getting to know the local physician.

A 2010 graduate of Texas A&M University, where she received her Bachelor of Science degree in biology, Miss McCreary said she is the first member of her family to go into medicine.

“I was very curious when I was younger,” she said, explaining that her father, Charles McCreary, has a background in engineering, which piqued her interest in “the way things worked.”

She also said she went into medicine because she enjoyed problem-solving.

On Thursday, Dr. King and his staff held a small farewell party for her at his office. She praised Dr. King, saying “He’s an example of the art of medicine.”